Refugee Leadership in Action: Reflections from the DREEM Team on Refugee Inclusion in Decision-making

Refugee youth have the talent, energy, and potential to positively impact their communities. Yet, they are often excluded from the spaces where decisions are made.

WUSC is committed to advancing refugee leadership and creating opportunities for refugee youth to grow and develop skills they can use to advocate for what matters most to them and their communities.

In line with this objective,  a Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) was created through the DREEM project, a partnership between Mastercard Foundation and WUSC that is working to facilitate an enabling environment for the inclusion of refugees and displaced youth, especially young women, to fully participate in society.  The YAC is a group of young refugees who bring their skills and experience to our work, ensuring that we remain relevant, accountable, and impactful in everything we do. 

As we mark three years since the creation of the YAC, our team reflects on the importance of refugee inclusion in decision-making and the impact of YAC engagement on members.

Meet Janice Bothello, DREEM Project Director

These young leaders bring unbridled passion and energy to this work. Unencumbered by conventional thinking, they approach problems with creativity, innovation, and a willingness to speak truth to power. They have inspired and, indeed, challenged us to reimagine the way in which we approach our work. 

DREEM is constantly learning and growing, and all of this is built from a strong and trusting partnership with the YAC. I think of several of the members that I had met over three years ago, who wouldn’t speak much and were rightly wary of yet another project or organization claiming to support inclusive change. We worked slowly and intentionally, building trust and creating as many opportunities for engagement and leadership as we could. We didn’t always get this right, but we were always guided by them to be better and do better. 

DREEM is where it is today because of the YAC – we have seen increased numbers of refugee and displaced youth recruited by higher education institutions around the world and have seen businesses grow and employ young people in Kenya. I often look at them in awe, and remind myself how very lucky I am to just be in their orbit. 

But you don’t only need to hear it from me. Bior Ajak, a member of the YAC, speaks of his own experience on the committee, over three years later:

Meet Bior Ajak, member of DREEM’s Youth Advisory Committee  

Models like the YAC are a vital support to governance structures for organizations that value the perspectives and experiences of young people in the communities where they do business or offer services. 

Furthermore, when it comes to refugee communities, and particularly refugee youth and women, the incorporation of a Youth Advisory Committee in an organization’s management structure becomes a necessity. This is due to the unique needs of refugee communities, especially youth and women. 

Having a Refugee Youth Advisory Committee to support an organization’s management team is a win-win situation for both the organization and the refugee communities working with them. It helps break down the traditional top-down paternalistic approach to development, and provides an avenue for a participatory, co-creative working environment that ensures long-term and sustainable development.

Drawing from my personal experience as a member of the Youth Advisory Committee with WUSC, the experience has provided my colleagues and I a range of personal and professional accomplishments and benefits. 

To begin with, the opportunity on the committee has given me the privilege to expand my professional network. This is because WUSC has been intentional with exposing the YAC to larger platforms, where we can bring the important conversation of youth representation and refugee inclusion to the table. We have been able to participate in  local and international workshops and summits as speakers and panelists. Through this exposure, we have validated our leadership potential and won credibility for ourselves and the organizations we represent. It is thanks to this exposure by WUSC that some of the Youth Advisory Committee members have been offered job opportunities in reputable international organizations to further their ambitions. Personally, I have met and gained valuable mentors from these summits and workshops, some of them at executive level, while some of them are my peers. 

My involvement with the Youth Advisory Committee has given me access to a network of like-minded individual change-makers that I would otherwise never have encountered. This, in my opinion, is the epitome of empowerment.

In addition to this, WUSC has extended health insurance coverage to its Youth Advisory Committee. This goes to show the level of commitment and recognition of the value that the committee brings to the organization that warrants the extension of one of the most important social benefits to the committee members. 

Furthermore, in recognition of the committee members’ entrepreneurial spirit and heavy community presence, WUSC has created a community fund to finance our own community-based projects that are making a direct positive impact within our communities. 

All these resources available to support us are not only encouraging, but are also major barrier breakers for refugees. We have created an environment of mutual benefit, co-creating and building on ideas that make our businesses thrive and our communities prosper, particularly the refugee communities.

The Displaced and Refugee Youth Enabling Environment Mechanism (DREEM) project is a 5-year project funded by the Mastercard Foundation that is working to facilitate an enabling environment for the inclusion of refugee and displaced youth, especially young women, to fully participate in society. The Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) is a group of young refugees whose role is to provide guidance to the DREEM project to enable the objectives of the Foundation and ensure that DREEM activities are designed and delivered to meet the needs of refugees and displaced young people.